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Three 45’s with original Boddie acetate
artwork plus extensive notes, housed
in a 7” shipping box, and sealed with
faximile Boddie paper shipping tape.
From 1965 until 1987, husband and wife
Thomas and Louise Boddie provided the greater Cleveland, Ohio, area with custom recording and affordable record manufacturing.
The Boddie Recording Company operated out of
the African-American couple’s house on the
east side of Cleveland, complete with a full- service, hand-wired analog recording studio and a busy pressing plant steaming around the clock in a converted dairy barn at the back of the estate. A kaleidoscope of northern Ohio musical acts used the Boddie services in one way or another, booking time in the tracking room, cutting reference acetates, or pressing a couple hundred 45s for local distribution.
Selecting from the reliable parade of
musicians crossing paths with his enterprise, Thomas found time to curate his own stable of talent through his Soul Kitchen, Luau, Caribi, Plaid, and Bounty labels.
But by and large, Boddie Recording Company
was not a creative endeavor for Thomas or
Louise. Instead, it made the Boddies an
honest living by providing teenage bands and
aspiring gospel ensembles an inexpensive
shot at having their own creations laid to wax.
Of these hundreds of groups, we’ve selected
three that were found in unmarked boxes,
never picked up, certainly never released.
The labels are a facsimile of the Boddie’s
custom acetate sticker, pressed on 48 gram
vinyl, housed in a tape box, and sealed with
Boddie Recording kraft tape. |
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